


Lonicera

by Tayine



Category: Batman Beyond
Genre: Death, Gen, Loss, Mourning, One-Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-13
Packaged: 2018-01-12 05:11:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tayine/pseuds/Tayine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short one-shot about Max dealing with loss.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lonicera

**Author's Note:**

> Lo dedico alla mia piccione bella e forte. ti amo cara mia.

There was still one classic graveyard taking occupants in New Gotham. Almost all the poor souls who died in the city were flash cremated and returned to family members in fancy boxes, but a few - notables, old blood, those rich enough - were able to secure a plot on the muddy, grassy hill a few long miles from the city center. It was gated and sloped up gently, a single square mile of pure earth that rose from the concrete and glass of the rest of civilization. There were a few trees, but the ground space was mostly used for ordered rows of stone and marble gravestones. They were spaced with almost military precision, just far enough to give privacy to mourners and close enough to utilize all the space that would, inevitably, run out.

It was in this graveyard that Max’s grandfather had finally come to rest. He had bought two plots as a young newlywed, laughing at his new wife’s eyerolls. “What twenty-year-old chooses his own grave?” she’d demanded, but Gramps had been insistent. “Just you wait. There won’t be room in sixty years.” Of course, he’d been right, and at the funeral, Gramma had even laughed once, picturing his triumphant face and voice crowing, “Told ya, babe!” as they had lowered the coffin into the moist dirt. There was still a place for her right next to him, the grass topsoil untouched, and Max had caught her gramma staring at it long after the other mourners had left.

That had been a year ago. Max walked up the gentle but steady incline of the one marked path that cut a divide between two hemispheres, remembering that day a year ago. Well, actually more than a year – she’d missed the anniversary by a week, as the actual night had been consumed by Bat work, and then classes had gotten in the way, and then yesterday she’d fallen asleep meaning to take a nap and head over after, but the cat nap had turned into a 3 on the Glasgow coma scale, and she’d woken this morning refreshed and resigned.

She was carrying a white and blue bouquet tied with a string – the flowers were fresh picked from the balcony garden Gramps had kept maintained throughout his life. Her favorite flower had been his as well: honeysuckle. He had taught her how to snip the end of the bud with fingernails and drag the stigma down, drawing the single bead of nectar with it. They had spent hours in the hot, muggy Gotham summers, drinking sweet tea and honeysuckle nectar, standing eighty floors up and looking out across the flashing, rippling cityscape.

Max rubbed her face with a fist. It was February and it was gray, like it always was October to March. It had been drizzling in the morning, but nothing too hard or too cold. She was wearing her favorite polyfiber pants and chunky shoes and a light, collarless swear, but still she shivered as she came within spitting distance of his grave.

“Hey, Gramps,” she murmured. The grass was cold and freshly trimmed by a caring yardkeeper. She settled down, sitting on her shoes, her knees and shins growing wet with dew.

She heard his voice reply, “Hey, Einstein,” and she grinned at the southern twang in his voice, never lost even after more than half a lifetime in New Gotham.

“I brought you honeysuckle,” she said, placing it down near the gravestone. It was etched in an old-fashioned font, a relic from his youth, and she grimaced at the dates. Too young, she thought. He should have lived to a hundred, even older.

“You’re too sweet, baby girl. Have one.”

Max obeyed, digging one bud from the bunch. She snipped, pulled, and touched the very tip of her tongue to the droplet, where the sweet taste buds were, like he’d taught her. “I miss you,” she said right after, and the tears fell immediately.

“Oh baby, I know. I miss you.”

Max wiped her eyes and ate another honeysuckle blossom. She dropped the spent flowers on the grass in front of the grave. Gramps never spoke to her unless she spoke first; that was the rule she had learned.

“I have something to tell you.”

“All right.”

“You’re gonna be mad I didn’t tell you when I could have. When I should have.”

“I won’t be mad.”

Max chuckled. “Wanna bet?”

“Five candy bars.”

“Deal.”

She waited, knowing he would.

“Gramps… you know Batman?”

“Yeah?”

“I mean yours, the one from when you were young?”

“Yeah?”

“I know him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I help him. Not just him, either. The new Batman too.”

Gramps had been frail when Terry had first taken the mantle, failing when Maxine had joined up, and had died late into their college freshman year, after they had both gotten well into the swing of things. Max had spent many afternoons at his bedside, reading to him the holonews headlines about Batman’s escapades. Gramps had always lamented the fact that he’d never become a superhero; though he said it jokingly, and always received laughs from those around, Max was sure he was expressing a deep, secret regret, and in the last few months, she had involved him in her work as much as she could without coming out and telling the full story.

It had always been her plan to tell him. She didn’t care what Wayne thought. She didn’t care what Terry thought. If Gramps was going to die, he was going to die knowing his favorite granddaughter had gone ahead and lived a small part of his dream, and had done it partly because she’d wanted to go in his stead. But then he had died suddenly, before anyone was ready, before anyone knew to prepare, and she’d been thrown in a tailspin. Terry had been understanding, Bruce less so and gruff about it, and it had taken Max days to sit back down before a computer terminal and wear the headset again.

“I don’t get what you mean, Einstein.”

“I’m Batman’s right hand, Gramps. I’m a superhero.” She distasted the word but there was nothing better for it; better to be short and to the point when conversing with one’s subconscious that manifested as a dead grandparent.

“What?”

“I help him, Gramps. Research, recon-.”

“What?!”

“I- What’s with the tone-?”

“WHAT?!”

Max flinched away as if he had really yelled, dropping honeysuckle blossoms from her lap. This was unexpected.

“MAXINE GIBSON, DO YOU MEAN TO TELL ME-?!”

“Stop shouting,” she said, waving her hands, scattering more flower buds. They fell gently, decorating the grass above his grave.

“I WILL SHOUT WHEN MY GRANDDAUGHTER IS PUTTING HER LIFE IN DANGER!”

“I’m not, Gramps, I swear. I don’t go out into the city, I stay in the cave or in my bedroom. Terry doesn’t let me go out with him.”

“Would you, if he did?”

Maxine had asked herself that a lot and wasn’t surprised that Gramps was asking too, speaking for her subconscious.

“I’m not sure. Probably not. I could never do what Terry does. I’m better with computers, you always said so. Sometimes, though, I daydream about it.”

“Does it make you happy?”

“It does.” She smiled, and tears came again. She hadn’t cried this much since his death. It felt good. She felt human.

“Well, baby girl, then I’m happy for you.”

Max nodded, as if this is what she’d been waiting for. “Are you?” she asked in a watery voice.

“Of course. You know that.”

She nodded again and split another honeysuckle stem. The taste of the nectar was intoxicating. She could practically feel his arms around her in a hug, feel the scratch of his gray stubble on her neck.

“Okay.”

She stood, leaving only the many honeysuckle blossoms scattered on the ground. She liked the way they looked. The battered bouquet was in her hand. She’d try to salvage it in a vase when she got home.

“Hey, Gramps.”

“What?”

“You owe me five candy bars.”

And he laughed. The sound filled her head, and soon she laughed too, and she knew she looked a like a madwoman, standing on her grandfather’s grave and laughing with full-body shakes, her head thrown back, her neck muscles straining. She recovered eventually as his hoots died down and wiped tears that were half joy and half pain from her eyes.

“Not this time, smartass. You said I’d be mad you didn’t tell me sooner.”

“You’re not, though, right? You don’t think it would have helped?” It was such an absurd question, a child’s question, that she couldn’t help but ask it. She’d been agonizing for a year and finally needed an answer.

Gramps’ voice got soft, like he was speaking right into her ear. “No, Max. You knew it was my time. I was ready. I was sorry to be leaving you and your grandmother, but you knew I had to go.”

Max murmured agreement. Her fingers tightened around the bouquet and then relaxed again. She felt a spiderweb of touch drift across her, and her skin tingled. She felt light.

“Okay. I’m gonna go. I’ll be back some time.”

“Okay, baby. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Max?”

She waited, about to step away from the blossom-covered grave.

“I am so proud of you.”

Maxine nodded, thinking about it. “I’m proud of me, too.”


End file.
